


A Very Lyatt Christmas

by amb_393



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-07 18:11:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16858885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amb_393/pseuds/amb_393
Summary: Wyatt and Lucy exchange Christmas gifts.





	A Very Lyatt Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> My contribution to the 12 Days of Lyatt Christmas prompts (day 5: gifts hunting). Inspired by The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry.

Wyatt kept his head down as he strode quickly down the sidewalk, bracing himself against the wind that slipped chilly fingers under the collar of his jacket. Avoiding eye contact, he was deeply aware of the holiday shoppers bustling around him with bags filled to bursting, snippets of cell phones conversations and honking cars, and narrow alleyways that could hide unseen enemies. He was still skittish at being back on the crowded San Francisco streets, skeptical that Rittenhouse operatives weren’t lurking around a dark corner. The crowds, the sounds, the technology, the _normalcy_ was a lot to process for someone who had spent the last several weeks living in a remote mountain cabin with only three companions and no wifi.

They had moved often in the seven months since Jessica kidnapped Jiya and Emma killed Rufus, never staying longer than a few weeks in a safe house, but now Agent Christopher seemed satisfied that the tiny log cabin nestled at the base of Mount Tamalpais was significantly hidden and Rittenhouse’s numbers were sufficiently reduced that they could stay put for a while. Wyatt was just glad they had windows this time. He wouldn’t miss frantically stuffing his few belongings into an old duffel bag at 3am, Agent Christopher’s clipped instructions hurrying them into armored vehicles with darkened windows waiting to whisk them off to yet another dingy hideaway.

That’s why he had been surprised when he’d approached her with his request—and she’d agreed. He’d thought it was a hopeless cause, but anything was worth a shot, right? Especially when it was this important. She’d granted him a few hours of leave, all by himself, out in public. She even let him borrow an unmarked government vehicle—and damn it had felt good to be in the driver’s seat again. As he turned onto yet another block, searching for yet another shop, he hoped it would be enough.

The door creaked as Wyatt pushed it open. It was the kind of nondescript shop that was easy to overlook, most eyes sliding from the Chinese restaurant on the left to the Chinese laundromat on the right without noticing the faded gold lettering across the front window in between. Dust motes skittered through the air in the cloudy beams of sunlight peeking through the window, shining pale light into the room crowded with furniture and shelves of pottery. It had been 130 years since Wyatt last set foot in Chinatown, but stepping into the antiques shop felt like stepping back in time—without the Lifeboat. The store looked exactly the way he had imagined an antiques shop to look, as though it had been staged by Hollywood execs. _Lucy would love this place_ , he thought. Maybe one day he would bring her back here, just for fun. As long as they had what he was looking for, of course.

Ignoring the chairs wedged into corners and shelves of knickknacks, Wyatt headed straight for the low counter that ran along the side of the store. He scanned the contents of the display case carefully, bending low over the glass and taking time to look at each piece individually. This wasn’t a time to be hasty or careless in his search. A young man appeared from behind a curtain separating the back room from the main area of the shop.

“Can I help you find something, sir?”

Wyatt straightened up with a sigh. There wasn’t anything here either. There was still one more shop on his list, though. He had one more chance to find it.

“No thanks,” he replied shaking his head and turning to leave. “You don’t have what I’m looking for.”

“Maybe I do,” the young man replied quickly. He pushed his dark bangs out his eyes and looked eagerly at the Delta Force soldier, clearly excited at the idea of a challenge. “Tell me what you’re looking for.”

Wyatt turned back, torn somewhere between mildly amused and vaguely irritated at the clerk’s naive persistence. He considered his response carefully.

“A locket,” Wyatt said finally. He’d throw the kid a bone, let him think he was being helpful, and then be on his way to the last shop. He didn’t have much of his free time left, but he could still be polite.

The clerk’s eyes lit up. “Wait here,” he instructed, then rushed behind the curtain, the fabric rustling quietly as the sheet fell back into place.

The minutes ticked by silently. Much too silently for Wyatt’s liking—he shifted his weight from foot to foot and couldn’t help looking into the shadows of the shop. Logically he knew that one of Emma’s Rittenhouse goons wasn’t lurking inside a large pine wardrobe, but he couldn’t keep his senses from remaining on high alert. He checked his watch impatiently. It had been almost ten minutes, and his leave time was quickly dwindling. He’d promised Agent Christopher that he’d be back on time, and he wasn’t interested in giving her any reason to revoke his outdoor privileges. The kid had probably gotten distracted and forgotten all about him.

Wyatt was turning toward the door when the curtain swished to the side again and the clerk called out, “Wait!”

Wyatt turned back dubiously. “Look, man, I don’t have much time,” he began, prepared to make a quick exit.

“I found it!” the clerk panted, obviously having engaged in a vigorous search of the back room. “I found it,” he repeated, more calmly. He lifted a hand and let a chain dangle between his fingers.

Wyatt rushed back to the counter and plucked the pendant out of the clerk’s hand. He cradled it gently in his hand, carefully stroking the engraved cover and turning it over in his fingers. It was oval, shined to a soft gleam, with intricate patterns etched into the gold. He tried the clasp, and it popped open easily. It was timeless and beautiful.

A lump formed at the back of Wyatt’s throat—relief, gratitude, and love filled him as he imagined presenting the locket to Lucy on Christmas morning. It was similar to the locket she had given to Fei to sell in 1888 in exchange for the damages to her father’s photography studio, but not exactly the same. He had known the chances of finding the original locket were slim; even Agent Christopher had tried to help him track it down, but months had passed and every lead was a dead end. But still he couldn’t stop himself from scouring every antiques shop in Chinatown even though more than a century had passed since Lucy pressed the necklace into the little girl’s hand. It wouldn’t be the same locket, but it could be a sister to her original necklace, an appropriate bit of symbolism so that she could once again keep her sister close to her heart, where Amy belonged. At least until they could find a way to keep Amy close in person, back alive where she belonged.

He imagined Lucy carefully placing the tiny photos of her sister and mother into the new locket. They were her most prized possessions, the last remaining link she had to her family and to the life she had led before she heard the name Rittenhouse, before she knew time travel was possible, before Garcia Flynn went on a joyride through history. Before she met Master Sergeant Wyatt Logan. Before he had pledged his heart to her and then run back to Jessica without a word.

He would never stop being sorry for that. One minute they had been standing together, his hands on her hips, reassuring themselves that they had each other. He had badly wanted to kiss her, remembering the amazing night before, but they were trying to be discreet in front of the others. And then his phone had vibrated in his pocket, and in his carefree, careless state of mind, he had checked it unthinkingly. The name on the screen was like a punch to his gut; suddenly it was 2012 again, and he was anxiously waiting for his wife to come home.

So when Rufus called Lucy over to read about Hedy Lamarr’s good fortune, Wyatt realized he had one chance to find out if Jessica was really alive. The security around the bunker had been relaxed in preparation for Flynn’s arrival, and it wouldn’t be long until the barriers were back in place. He slipped out, grabbing a jacket off a chair as he passed, and hitchhiked into the city, looking up the address of the bar she had offhandedly mentioned in the text.

And when he had seen her, her hair shorter but her eyes the same, alive, _alive_ , he had barely stopped to consider the reason for her miraculous return. Of course he was relieved she was alive—he had spent years blaming himself for her death, he had vowed to spend the rest of his life with her—but he was confused and scared too. He was bewildered about what the resurrection of his dead wife meant for the possibilities he planned to explore with Lucy, the woman who had given meaning to his life again after he thought there was nothing left for him. He hadn’t forgotten about Lucy, not for a moment. He had just never been good at articulating his feelings, and he had no words to explain the situation. He had gone into survival mode, reverting back into an old pattern of relying only on himself, shutting himself off from outside communication, and it had only made things worse. For all of them.

The clerk cleared his throat unobtrusively, and Wyatt realized that he had been lost in his thoughts, absently rubbing the curves of the locket, for a long time. He looked up.

“I’ll take it.”

The clerk shifted uncomfortably. “Don’t you want to know the price first? It’s quite expensive. It comes from the William Randolph Hearst family, dating back to the late 1800s.”

An involuntary smile tugged at one side of Wyatt’s mouth. This was even better than he’d hoped. “That’s perfect. The price doesn’t matter. I’ll pay anything you’re asking.”

They completed the transaction—he had never spent so much money on a piece of jewelry, but he didn’t begrudge a single cent of it. He would have paid twice as much if it meant seeing Lucy’s face light up in one of her trademark Preston smiles. As he pushed through the door, bells tinkling lightly overhead, Wyatt tucked the small box reverently into the inside pocket of his jacket. He could feel its weight resting over his heart. Its solidness, small but mighty, was like his love for Lucy. It had started small and then grown into something so big it was a part of him, as necessary as air to his survival.

The drive back to the safe house was a cheery one. Wyatt turned on the radio and flipped through the stations, finding only holiday tunes instead of the classic rock he preferred. He daydreamed about the last time he had heard the name William Randolph Hearst. It was before they broke Flynn out of prison, before Rittenhouse brought back Jessica from the dead. He, Lucy, and Rufus were in Hollywood 1941. They had helped Hedy Lamarr return Citizen Kane to the studio because Hearst and Rittenhouse were in cahoots to destroy the movie and simultaneously change the course of history. Whoever controls information controls everything.

That night had been pure magic. Lucy had been stunning in her ivory and gold gown, her lips bright with scarlet stain. They had been a duo that night, Logan and Preston, their pretend Hollywood partnership mirroring the real way they could finish each other’s sentences. He had heard Lucy sing for the first time that night, seen her glowing on stage with all eyes on her. She literally took his breath away. And then, standing in front of that pool, stumbling—giggling and dripping—into the pool house, he could barely tell where he ended and Lucy began.

He had waited so long for Lucy. He had told her once that Jessica was his lightning bolt, that he knew instantly that Jessica was the one person he was meant to be with. But that felt like another lifetime (it was), and just as quickly as lightning lit up the sky with a brilliant flash, it also burned in hot, licking flames that destroyed everything in its path. Beautiful, but deadly. Lightning didn’t last.

Rittenhouse had brought Jessica back from the dead, trading her brother’s life for a lifetime of loyalty, and he had fallen for it, allowing himself to get sidetracked from the mission and the woman he loved by guilt and a romanticized idea of the past.

Wyatt had allowed his baggage to hurt his team, too wrapped up in his own confusion to recognize that his actions were putting Rufus, Jiya, and Lucy in danger and leaving a path of devastation in his wake that far surpassed any of his own struggles. Jiya had fought and scraped her way solo through three years in the past, Rufus had bled out in a dirty 19th century tavern, his body left behind without the comfort of friends, and Lucy–his beautiful, perfect Lucy—stronger and smarter than anyone else he had ever met, had been driven to her knees, losing everyone and everything she knew and loved, including herself. Including him, even after he’d promised she would never lose him.

Afterward, after everything had imploded, they had shown him the true meaning of family, offering him grace and forgiveness that he didn’t deserve, their little family restored by Rufus’s rescue, Jessica and Emma’s imprisonment, and Lucy’s gentle soul and giant heart.

As he drove up the winding roads, one hand resting lightly on the steering wheel and the other drumming along to the beat on the windowsill, he found himself singing along. He grinned at himself. He could barely carry a tune, but Lucy was clearly rubbing off on him. She would break into song while in the shower, making sandwiches for lunch, or stringing lights on their Christmas tree. The music just flowed out of her, as naturally as breathing. He had never seen her like this, so lighthearted and carefree. It was nice to see her happy.

He pulled the car over into a clearing and shut off the engine. It was part of the deal he’d made with Denise—they couldn’t keep the car at the safe house, but she was willing to let them use it on special occasions. Wyatt would leave it here for her and her team to pick up while he hiked the last mile and a half to the cabin. As he turned the bend, the house appeared through the trees. For a moment, the sight made his breath catch in his throat. AC hadn’t let them decorate the outside of the cabin, but she had relented to Lucy and Jiya’s insistence that they decorate inside. They had gone on a tree hunting excursion a couple of days before, and now he could see it, standing straight and tall through the window. His teammates hadn’t closed the curtains yet, with twilight in its last dying gasp, and the lamps backlit the silhouettes of his friends inside. It looked like something out of a cheesy Christmas movie. He hadn’t been much into the Christmas spirit when he was on his own, preferring instead to volunteer to take holiday shifts so his buddies could be at home with their families.

Lucy came to the window and reached up to close the curtains, and Wyatt was startled out of his daydream. He suddenly couldn’t bear to be away from her any longer and half-jogged the last few yards, taking the steps to the porch two at a time. He rapped on the door in a specific fashion, their special knock, then flung open the door. The Christmas fantasy that he had seen through the window wasn’t an illusion; carols were playing through an old radio they had found in a closet, and the air smelled like cinnamon. Rufus was even sipping from a mug of eggnog.

“Where have you been?” Lucy exclaimed as he closed the door behind him. “I thought you went out for an errand, but you’ve been gone for hours. I was starting to get worried!”

But it wasn’t worried like they used to be, worried-that-Rittenhouse-killed-you. It was worried like I-thought-you-got-lost or did-you-get-a-flat-tire. He grabbed her around the waist and swung her around in a lopsided circle, unable to contain his joy and relief at seeing her again, at feeling simply _ordinary_ instead of like fugitives on the run. He hadn’t felt so happy in a long time. Maybe never. They'd be out of hiding in a few weeks, and then they really could be an ordinary couple, just like all those people he had seen in the city who never knew that Connor Mason had built a time machine. Lucy laughed and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing herself tighter against him and meeting his searching mouth for a warm kiss. As Wyatt set her back on her feet, her hand slid from the back of his neck to his chest, where the jewelry box lay nestled in his pocket.

“What’s this?” she frowned at the small lump, reaching for his zipper to slip her hand inside his jacket. Wyatt pushed her hands away gently.

“Not now, Professor. I’ll tell you later,” he teased with a wink, and she rewarded him with a playful pout.

Jiya waved a few pieces of paper in the air behind Lucy’s shoulder. “AC brought mail today,” she announced, thrusting the colored envelopes toward him. “Christmas cards from Flynn and Connor. Looks like Flynn is having a Hallmark Christmas with Lorena and Iris, and Connor’s still traveling on his speaking tour. He should be getting back from Europe in time to start teaching at Yale for the spring semester,” she summarized.

Rufus looked up from his mug of eggnog. “We were about to play Monopoly. You up for a game?”

Hiding out for so many months meant entertainment was scarce, consisting mostly of dog-eared books or outdated magazines, so they had adopted a habit of playing board games. Everyone could agree on Monopoly, plus it had helped to while away the long hours when they were waiting for the alarm signaling that the Mothership had jumped again.

“Sure,” Wyatt agreed. “I want to be the racecar token, though.”

Rufus rolled his eyes and Jiya laughed. “You’re always the racecar,” Rufus complained to Wyatt’s back, as the soldier headed down the hall to hide the jewelry box from his nosy teammates.

Rufus and Jiya’s relationship was stronger than ever, Rufus’s brush with death and Jiya’s time in the past having made their previous disagreements pale in comparison to their devotion to each other. Neither of them were interested in a big white wedding, but they planned to go to the courthouse when AC finally released them. Rufus wanted his mother and brother to attend, and Jiya was adamant that they would use their own names instead of pop culture pseudonyms when they got married. Wyatt and Lucy had easily promised to be there as witnesses.

While Rufus and Jiya had been canoodling like newlyweds in those first months after Chinatown, Wyatt and Lucy had danced around each other like skittish horses. It had taken time and work to rebuild their relationship, but it didn’t take long after the future Lifeboat arrived for Lucy to admit that she loved him too. They had spent hours rehashing those weeks in the bunker, Wyatt confessing that he had never stopped wanting to be with her even though he was still technically married to a version of Jessica, and Lucy conceding that she had been too scared of her heartbreak to discuss the situation honestly with him.

They were finally able to see that Rittenhouse’s plot to separate them had been successful, that each understood the other’s response to the impossible situation they had been forced into. He was amazed by Lucy’s forgiveness and compassion, for allowing him to fix what he had broken between them. They were both now unequivocally sure that their partnership made each of them better in every way that mattered.

\---

Wyatt woke on Christmas morning to Lucy’s screams. He was reaching for his gun in the bedside drawer practically before opening his eyes.

“It’s snowing, it’s snowing!” she shrieked, launching herself away from the window and onto the bed.

 _Snowing_? Wyatt’s sleep-muddled mind finally deciphered Lucy’s words, and he realized that there was no danger. He put the gun away sheepishly, Lucy giving him a knowing look. She cupped his face in her hands.

“Good morning,” she soothed. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

He leaned forward to kiss her quickly, then said, “Did you just say it’s snowing?”

“Yes! It’s not much, but it’s a white Christmas!” Lucy bounced off the bed again and yanked back the curtain, revealing lazy snowflakes drifting past the glass.

“It’s snowing in San Francisco–it’s a Christmas miracle!” she repeated.

Wyatt patted the quilt beside him, still rumpled from where she had slept beside him. “Only because you’re not the one who will have to shovel it,” he complained. “Cold precipitation isn’t a miracle. Saving Rufus was a miracle. _You_ are my miracle.”

Lucy snuggled against his side and draped his left arm over her shoulders. He flinched as she pressed her cold nose into his neck. Keeping his hold on her, Wyatt leaned over to the bedside table again and dug into another drawer. In a few minutes they would get up to make Christmas breakfast with Rufus and Jiya, but for now he’d take advantage of a few quiet moments alone.

When he looked up again, Lucy was staring at him with her mouth open. “Wyatt . .” she started.

“I don’t, are you, what is—” she stammered.

“It’s not that, Lucy,” he promised, realizing belatedly that the square jewelry box could be misunderstood. “Not yet. One day it will be, but I know you’re not ready yet. Go on, open it,” he urged.

She did, slowly. “Wyatt,” she whispered, tears filling her eyes. She stroked a finger over the golden locket, then slipped her thumbnail into the catch, opening the locket to see the spaces waiting to be filled with her family’s photos.

“To replace the one you gave to Fei,” he said, smiling at her. “So you can wear Amy’s picture again.”

Lucy kissed his cheek gratefully. “Thank you. It’s beautiful,” she said. “But where did you find it?”

Wyatt smirked. “Let’s just say I had a mission of my own these past few months. And a little help from Agent Christopher,” he admitted.

“That’s what you’ve been doing all this time?” she cried. She let out a strangled noise that was somewhere between a cry and a laugh. “I thought . . well I thought maybe you were getting tired of me. You were avoiding me, being secretive. I was afraid you were pulling away.”

“Lucy, I will never get tired of being with you,” he promised seriously, gazing into her brown eyes. “I am so sorry that I worried you. I was only trying to make you happy.” He frowned; he had been trying to make this big romantic gesture to prove just how much she meant to him, and in the meantime he had once again made her feel like he didn’t care.

“I know that now,” she agreed quickly. “It just seems like I’m always waiting for the next bad thing to happen, you know? Like I’m not allowed to be this happy, and something is going to come take it away at any moment.”

He pulled her against his chest, cradling her. If only he could hold her this close and keep her this safe forever. “No one’s going to take anything away from you, not anymore. We’re allowed to be happy now. We don’t have to be running all the time.”

After a moment, she pulled away. “I have something for you, too!”

She scrambled off the bed and reaching underneath the bedskirt. Of course Lucy Preston hid her gifts under the bed.

“You’re all I need,” he protested, meaning it.

She bounced back onto the bed and pushed a box into his lap. “Here, open it!”

Wyatt carefully peeled back the brown paper, taking his time because he could feel Lucy vibrating with anticipation beside him.

“What’s taking you so long? Just rip it off!” she practically shouted.

As he opened the flaps of the cardboard box, revealing the contents inside, Wyatt could feel his face fall. He tried to fix it, to rearrange his expression into something neutral that wouldn’t reveal that there was a knot of disappointment in his stomach. But Lucy knew him too well, and she noticed every subtle change of his expression.

“What’s wrong?” she asked immediately. “Did I get it wrong?”

“You got everything right, Lucy,” he promised, smiling a little sadly. “But I . . don’t have it anymore.”

Lucy sat back, confused. “What do you mean? Did you put it into storage?”

Wyatt reached for one of her hands with both of his, stroking his thumbs over her knuckles. “Lucy,” he explained slowly, “so I could buy the locket for you, I had to sell Bowie’s knife.”

Realization dawned on her face, and he thought she might cry again. “You’re telling me that I bought you a box full of stuff to clean, restore, and display the knife that Jim Bowie gave you when you fought at the Alamo, and you don’t even have it anymore?”

“Lucy, I’m so sorry.” He was devastated at disappointing her yet again. How could this have gone so wrong?

“Wyatt, look at me,” she instructed gently. “I’m sorry too,” she said. “I’m sorry you felt like you had to sell your most prized possession to buy me a gift, but you do not get to feel guilty about this.”

He looked up in surprise.

“Yes, I know you’re feeling guilty about this,” she continued. “It’s signature Wyatt Logan, I can see it all over your face. What you did, that locket, it’s amazing. I can’t believe you did that for me.”

“It wasn’t even a choice, Lucy. Nothing will ever matter to me as much as you do. I’d give up anything for you.”

She smiled and leaned in to kiss him slowly. “I know. And you know I love you . . right, schweetheart?”

He grinned and pulled her back for another kiss. Just before their lips met, he whispered, “I love you, too, babydoll.”


End file.
